The new math of résumés

Three years ago, shortly before going into labor with her first child, Jennifer Walzer had an epiphany. Ms. Walzer, chief executive and founder of 11-year-old Backup My Info!, or BUMI, a Manhattan-based provider of online data backup and recovery, knew she'd be out of the office for several months. And she would need a more efficient way to understand "what was going on at the company at any given moment of the day," she said.

The answer was to turn the firm, which now has 12 employees and about $3 million in revenue, into a metrics-driven machine. And that meant installing new measurements not only for employees' performance, but also for hiring. Candidates for positions in areas from engineering to operations would have to demonstrate through the use of numerical outcomes that they'd achieved specific goals in previous jobs.

According to Ms. Walzer, she's been able to hire "superstars" since then and double the firm's revenue. "With the right metrics in place, it's a lot easier to move forward," said Ms. Walzer, whose business is profitable. "They are now key for us."

She is in good company. These days, more and more employers and recruiters are looking for people who can do more than ace a series of interviews. They want individuals who can point to numbers—clear metrics that paint a picture of specific achievements, from revenue growth to turnover reduction.

"Business today is much more competitive and faster paced than before, with less margin for error," said Caren Fleit, senior client partner at executive recruiter Korn Ferry International. And, the thinking goes, the right metrics can help reduce that risk.

Keeping score

At the same time, the use of metrics in recruiting has a dark side. For one thing, there's the danger that subtle distinctions in a candidate's background will get short shrift if the person lacks the requisite numbers—or that otherwise perfect job seekers will be tossed aside because their résumé fails to emphasize a particular metric. "You lose the nuances," said Edward Fleischman, CEO of the Execu/Search Group, a recruiting firm in Manhattan. There's even a potential to ignore all-important soft skills—or an individual's basic humanity. "You face a risk if the pendulum swings too far in one direction," said Ms. Fleit.

In fact, many recruiters and career experts warn that metrics are best viewed as one important piece in an overall puzzle. "The right metrics might help you make the short list, but a lot of other factors go into the decision," said Caroline Ceniza-Levine, co-founder of Six-FigureStart, a Manhattan-based career-coaching firm.

Certainly, a perfect storm of conditions has contributed to the metrics-driven recruiting environment. Technical advances make it possible to measure all kinds of things, from the increase in dinner reservations made via social-media sites to how long readers spend perusing your blog.

Another factor is the proliferation of applicant-tracking software systems, with which users can search for specific criteria and keywords that meet the description for the job they're trying to fill. Recruiters then can filter candidates down to a small group before conducting interviews. "It's a great tool for weeding out candidates who aren't a perfect fit," said Jaime Klein, founder of Inspire Human Resources, a Manhattan-based consulting firm that does recruiting, among other tasks.

The economy, of course, is another factor. With the exception of certain industries, such as technology, recruiters are still inundated with applicants and need a way to zero in on the most qualified candidates. Metrics help.

Faced with a difficult market two years ago, Johnna Ho decided to close her then-four-year-old bridal-dress manufacturing startup and look for a job. She found that prospective employers were emphasizing such metrics as increasing initial markup—a measure of profitability that reflected her history of setting prices at the outset that were maintained without markdowns.

With carefully selected metrics on her résumé that pointed to her long tenure in the industry, she was able to find a job as director of production development for Demetrios Bride, a Manhattan-based wholesaler and retailer of bridal dresses. "There's so much more pressure on employers when they have to choose 20 people from 2,000 résumés," Ms. Ho said. "They need to see something tangible in writing first."

While the trend toward metrics-based hiring has affected many industries and professions, nowhere has it been more pronounced than in marketing and public relations, according to recruiters and other career experts. That's partly because there's an increasing amount of measurable data available on social-media sites.

"The scientific side of marketing has been dialed up," said Ms. Fleit.

Cost savings count

47%Percentage of recruiters who say measuring the quality of hires is their biggest challenge.Source: Survey by cloud-based recruiting tech firm Jibe, 2013

While it used to be that candidates were evaluated largely on the creativity of a campaign, now they're expected to show a real outcome. Ms. Walzer, for example, who is currently looking for a marketing manager, plans to scrutinize data based on candidates' generation of leads, among other factors.

For Kristen Ruby, CEO of Ruby Media Group, a five-year-old, five-employee public-relations and social-media agency in Manhattan, it's all about what her clients want. Increasingly, she finds they are measuring her company's performance using specific metrics, such as growth in the number of diners at a restaurant or media placements.

For that reason, she recently stepped up the use of metrics in the hiring process, hoping that will help her pinpoint candidates who have delivered the results her clients are demanding. "Everyone wants to see measurement," said Ms. Ruby, whose profitable company has "under $1 million" in revenue.

Even people in jobs traditionally viewed as cost centers are feeling the heat. At the epicenter is the human-resources department, according to Lisa Rangel, managing director of Chameleon Resumes, a Rutherford, N.J.-based executive résumé-writing service and job-search consultancy that works with many clients in New York City. She sees more pressure on HR managers to find cost-effective hires who have a track record of productivity.

In hospitality and other industries with high turnover, "any HR person who can show they've lowered that rate will be worth their weight in gold," she said.

Nor are top-level executives' positions immune to the trend. "When you're hired as an executive, you're being hired for your ability to bring results," said Ms. Rangel. That includes honchos with jobs that normally are hard to measure. For example, she's seen general counsels who highlighted such accomplishments as their record of negotiating settlements that reduced their employer's financial liability.

In many cases, metrics of executive performance also include results of assessments. For the past five years, Korn Ferry has stepped up use of its database of more than 1 million executives who have taken the firm's proprietary assessment, setting a "best in class" benchmark defined by performance for individuals at different levels.

Of course, metrics can take recruiters only so far. Ms. Klein of Inspire Human Resources points to a client who recently hired her to recruit a top salesperson. While the five finalists all had achieved the right metrics, such as 20% year-over-year sales growth for two to three years, the final selection came down to the individual's demonstration of interpersonal skills in competency-based interviews. "I've never seen a leader make a hire based just on metrics," she said.